


a golden chalice turned silver

by aikotters



Series: Tower of God Fics [20]
Category: Fate/Grand Order, Fate/stay night - All Media Types, 신의 탑 | Tower of God
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fate/ Fusion, Blood and Injury, Burns, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Sex, Explicit Sexual Content, First Time, Holy Grail War (Fate), M/M, Magic, Mistaken Identity, Past Character Death, Scars, Servants, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:53:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26981710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aikotters/pseuds/aikotters
Summary: "I ask of you: are you my master?" Or Aguero has a single wish and will do anything to get it granted again, even summon a fictional god. Who may not be so fictional after all.
Relationships: Anak Zahard Jr. & Hatsu & Ship Leesoo, Khun Aguero Agnis/Twenty-Fifth Baam | Jyu Viole Grace, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Series: Tower of God Fics [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1916932
Comments: 8
Kudos: 60





	a golden chalice turned silver

**Author's Note:**

> Additional Tags: Slow burn, past character death, ptsd, magic, blood, fire

The relic he'd found was a simple red gem, jagged at the edges and heavy despite being no bigger than a young human infant. The place he'd come to was a beach where you could see the stars, the sky purple with the sunset and the moon nearly full. Not the perfect conditions for a summoning ideally, but everything is just this shade of off anyway.

And people would be looking for him to follow the rules, to get this right because this was his only chance.

His one chance at seeing Bam -

_Screaming as he's swallowed by smoke and tendrils and light, crying and begging with his hand outstretched just far enough away that he can't drag his burned fingertips through the air fast enough._

Alive and whole and his again.

He's willing to take the risk of breaking the rules. What use are they?

The spell isn't made with blood in entirety. This servant is vague in the books, their seal dug into the dirt and poured out with water first, then wine, then eight drops of his own blood. The servant is of legend and myth and story. Long hair and a soft face, but blood on his hands and the destruction of a time long dead. Fictional maybe, but the story remains in what had been a tower once, a series of towers. All that remains now is his lone tower supposedly, where Jahad lingers like a force of light and shadow, fate and future.

All fallen by this child of faraway, who did not belong. Or something stupid like that anyway.

Aguero isn't quite sure of the class, no one is sure until they're in their vision, or if they fail or not. He's assuming it's a caster. A witch or something, spell users are often godlike to idiots. All he has to do is hope they will be strong and capable and obedient.

He looks at the sky. It's more black than purple, a thin line of yellow at the edge of the water. The stars are starting to twinkle. There's no better time to call upon the god than this.

He pulls a single gem from his pocket. Blue suspendium, the color of his eyes, Bam had said when he'd given it to him. He had never been able to ask how Bam had gotten it.

Soon he would be able to, after apologizing for using it.

He turns to the seal, holding his hand palm down, and breathes. His magical energy thrums gently from his palm outward. Aguero takes another deep breath and begins.

" _Silver and steel to the origin. Gems and the archduke of contracts to the cornerstone. The name of the ancestor revoked from my lips."_

The suspendium melts through his closed fingers, falling onto the dull red thing wrapped in bandages. The grass trembles, creatures roaming away towards the water.

" _The alighted wind becomes a wall. The gates in the four directions close, coming from the crown, the three-forked road that leads to the kingdom circulate."_

His arm aches.

" _Fill."_

The seal begins to shine gold rather than red.

" _Fill."_

A soft wind blows from its center.

" _Fill."_

The distinct scent of grass after rainfall.

" _Fill."_

Bam's smile, open and purposefully directed only at him.

" _Fill."_

Rachel's face torn in grief and pleasure.

" _Repeat every five times. Simply shatter once filled."_

The air is warm and smoking, a coppery scent at his fingertips and knees. Khun inhales, his bleeding palm dripping anew.

" _I offer to you now: Your self is under me, my fate is in your sword. In accordance with the approach of the Holy Grail, if you abide by this feeling, this reason, then answer."_

Pain laces his back, flayed open anew. But Aguero does not look away.

" _Here is my oath. I am the one who becomes all the good of the world of the dead, I am the one who lays out all the evil of the world of the dead. You, seven heavens clad in three words of power, arrive from the ring of restraint. O keeper of the Heavenly Scales!"_

And the world _warps._

A burst of light colored silver blinds him for a moment. Then -

Someone stands in front of him, almost his match in height. They are still as a windless evening, the shadows at their feet twitching and moving like a breathing chest. Their hair is long and wrapped in a ponytail, brushing their ankles like a twitching tail. They hum and it rings through Khun's ears an octave too low, honeyed mead in a sound. They're dressed as if for a party, rather than war. No armor, ordinary sneakers in a brand he's heard of. A biker jacket marked with eyes, dress slacks, bandages off white and threatening to tear. A white dress shirt bleached cleaner than snowfall. They raise their head slowly, bronze skin dark in the sunset, form threatening to melt away into the stars above. They hold a black needle weapon in one hand and ethereal black wings flap soundlessly in the air, swirling patterns of gold and silver forming and vanishing in turns. These appendages and the blade disappear as the person - his Servant - turns to look at him.

Golden eyes, deeper than the sun, just as beautiful and infinitely more broken, bore into him. They know him. They know down to the prana in his guts, the light that has left his eyes. They see everything he is and isn't. They see him and find him -

He doesn't know.

The world breathes with his new Servant, waiting for him to exhale.

"I ask of you," they say in a soft, low voice. "Are you my master?

Aguero swallows and sets his shoulders. "I am. My name is Khun Aguero Agnes. Who am I speaking to?"

For a moment, he could swear the person's eyes widen with shock. But then, they smoothly drop to one knee and say, clear as a bell -

"This Servant is a Foreigner, Jue Viole Grace, God of FUG. I am here to grant your wish in this war, my master."

All Aguero can do is stare. Then, dumbly, he says, "A _what?_ "

* * *

He'd met Bam randomly, a strange boy with a love of flowers and the sky that helped them grow. He ground herbs into spices for the elderly, made flower arrangements for people when asked, and put crowns in Khun's hair like he was a king.

A humble child who worked for his adoptive father, happy with his dirt and plants and the ability to explore.

A humble little boy, who had entranced Khun simply by being kind.

With only one other friend. A strange friend that had made him think of rotting sunflowers. Perhaps there was something tasty underneath, but all she was was awful. At least to him.

Khun was one of many Khuns, one of many little mages to throw away when the time comes.

And yet, he had value to this random boy who only knew how to make plants grow and play with water

He would never be a mage, but he would be kind as the dog in their yard.

And he had been pushed to his death, pushed by his other friend.

And since that day, since the last, botched, godly awful Holy Grail War that no one had won, Aguero has waited. And now it's time.

* * *

Five books, three hours and one very frazzled boy later, Aguero has found his answers. Or some of them.

Foreigners are servants that don't come to Holy Grail Wars. They take on the power of gods to avoid madness. They surpass logic, because logic would make them not Heroic Spirits.

"I expected a Caster," he admits. "This changes things a lot."

Viole tilts his head. "You should be careful saying such things so lightly, Master."

Khun is tempted to ignore him, but considering the weirdness of everything, he doesn't think he can afford to. "Why?"

"I can't be the only strange servant here," he says after a quiet moment. "And I'd rather hope they were on our side than that of another master's. Did something strange happen in the previous Holy Grail War?"

Khun swallows. He remembers a roaring flame, a Yeon's voice sobbing, _that girl_ , laughing hysterically with bloody tears in her eyes.

Bam screaming.

"Yeah." he says. "My friend fell into the grail's guts and it exploded."

The young man's nose wrinkles, the expression strange and mottled and unreal almost. "Ah," he murmurs. "That puts things into perspective then. Holy Grails are meant for Servants. I can't imagine what one could do to a whole human."

"The area exploded," Khun says, and his back burns at the memory again and again, not as much as his fingers but the flames lick up his skin anyway, in his dreams, in his mind.

"No, that's a reaction to the magic bursting out unevenly." Jue Viole Grace rolls his shoulders and they crack before he continues. "Magic tends to be terribly flammable to manmade objects. Anyway… did your friend have a high shinsu resistance? Or a pure kind of magic?"

 _Shinsu?_ "According to him he was an ordinary orphan."

"Well," says Viole rather solemnly. "He must not have been that ordinary. Anyone else would have been swallowed by the grail and corrupted or worse. If it's to the point I was summoned along with any others, the likelihood is that he changed _it."_ He pauses. "That's just a hypothesis though."

Khun couldn't imagine Bam doing that, no matter how interesting he was to Khun himself.

"It's the most sensible one we have." Khun is both disgusted and fascinated by how little he knows and how much this servant does. "Do you have any other hypotheses?"

"The word 'war' is a misnomer?" Viole offers. "There is usually a few factions. It's unlikely to be more than two, including your own. Winning will be more difficult and only one will be able to reach the place they need to."

"The Root?" The Akasha, the purpose of all the old family maguses, all of the old ten families claimed they were after, could Bam have fallen into there?"

Viole hums. "not in this war. This war is for the stars of the last tower's peak. Akasha cannot grant wishes. It has chosen a host anyway."

Well, that's a terrifying concept.

* * *

The first step to victory is in information. And that is why Khun has allies. They aren't friends, not _his_ friends, not really. He can't do those anymore. He hasn't tried.

Well, he says that but some people have snuck their way into his life in ways he can't possibly understand and he doesn't really think there's anything he can do about it.

The problem is that they're only sometimes allies and sometimes enemies.

This is the problem with not knowing who Masters are going to be.

He slurps down his soup and watches Hatz glare at him over the counter. His sword is in hand, medium at the ready to try (and subsequently fail, because Khun doesn't need a servant to know what he's doing, especially not against seppuku of all people) to cut off Khun's head should they break the rules of a neutral boundary.

"Isn't there supposed to be someone from the church supervising this?" Khun asks, if only to watch Hatz twitch. Viole is invisible but not behind him. If servants are as good as they say, he doesn't need to be. He can just exist long enough to cut off Hatz's hands and make him an excellent hostage and that's the end of it.

He'd rather it not come to that; they're in public.

"Shibisu isn't considered unbiased," Hatz replies through grit teeth.

Oh gods are they really gonna fucking do this? "I'm not going to murder Anak for fuck's sake, Hatz."

"You're going to take her dream," protests the swordsman. "I don't understand half of this magical nonsense, but she needs this. It's her mother."

"And Bam is my friend," he points out, burying the rage guts deep. "You can't tell either of us we need to get over it without being a hypocrite. I heard there were punishments for that."

Hatz scowls but doesn't argue. Conflict is written all over his face.

Hatz loves them, gods he does, and Khun isn't nearly as much of an asshole as to pretend that Hatz's feelings aren't real, just that he doesn't believe them, or that Anak's wish isn't important, because it is.

"I'm just saying we can work together until that final fight comes and decide it then. Considering the War is fucked up already, we may not even have to. The Grail only needs seven servants at maximum to do what it wants."

Viole shifts silently behind him, present in a way Khun has never felt anything there before. Khun thumbs a knife into his free hand. He's not going to not explain the situation. If they have to solve this with violence, he's going to make every effort to save energy that he can.

Besides this is common knowledge. Shibisu had to have warned him before they moved here that they were in a Holy Grail War hot zone. The normal citizens wouldn't notice shit anyway.

"But you can't confirm it."

"Not yet." Admitting that is a kick in the teeth. "But with you and Shibisu, I can."

Because like it or not, Shibisu is the best information gatherer there is in the area, possibly of their generation and Hatz was the only one who could keep up with him.

Hatz makes a face. Then he sighs. "I don't trust you earrings, but all right. We'll hear you out. If you show your servant."

He'd wondered if they'd pull that. "Fine," he says, because there's no point in hiding him. "We'll meet you at the neutral line."

" _Master,"_ Viole warns softly in his mind, a featherlight touch in a dangerous game. " _There's company."_

Oh. Good. This was a war after all.

"Get Shibisu," Khun says. "And get going. We'll meet you there. I'd say send Anak with you but she's a Master. I don't blame her if she shows up."

Now if she tries to break the truce before it gets going, that's definitely not his problem, he has the solution for it.

Once Hatz is gone, sword in hand, Khun rises to his feet. The other customers in the little shop look at him like he's the weirdo, but they're the ones who can't feel it, the hostile burning, wild _rage_ of the magic.

There are great presences here, or at least one.

Khun exits the building and starts to walk, unhurried. Running will give him away, and there's no thrill to this. He doesn't enjoy fighting to kill, and he's not that lacking in self-preservation enough to recklessly waste his life. Besides, if this Master is smart, or resourceful, they'll know where he's going.

There's a rush of wind a distance away and he very carefully turns a corner.

A great white sword imbeds itself into the gate as his left.

"Hmph," says its owner, irritated. They're the size of a child, roughly a teenager, barely taller than Khun himself. "You're actually a fast little rat, aren't you?"

Khun doesn't bother to be offended. "Servant Saber?"

"And a smart rat too. Barely." He sneers. "Not that it's any of your business, as you'll be dead soon."

The young man raises his sword and there's a quiet flurry of fabric as a fist slams into the pale face of the enemy in front of him.

"Get going, Master," says Viole in the softest voice he can. "This person's no match for me."

Saber leans back to retake his stance. Khun notes to himself to try decking Hatz in the face at their next fight to see if this was useful against anyone with a weapon, or just idiots. Then he pauses, silver eyes turning cold and furious. "You…"

"Unfortunately," Viole says. The sheer loathing in that tone is unmistakable. "Unless you want a repeat of our last meeting, ignore your master's whims and fall back. The bell hasn't chimed yet."

The young man lets out a laugh. "I need no bells. I go where I wish."

"It's good to know being someone's dog hasn't sharpened your mind," Viole says, unfettered, but burning fury.

He holds out his hand and the black needle from earlier in the day forms smoothly in one hand.

" _Master,"_ Viole says without turning from his opponent. " _Go."_

He doesn't want to. He needs to know what they'll be up against, he needs to feel the conflict of servant against servant, the chime of war in his skin.

But the alliance is more important, and his Servant will tell him anyway.

So Khun gets to his feet and runs.

As he passes a line of trees, he feels someone's eyes on him and the sound of a whisper,

" _It looks like you're still a coward too, aren't you?"_

But no one is there when he looks back.

**Author's Note:**

> ... Please be nice this is my first E-rated fic. Anyway, please let me know what you think, this fic will be slow. I hope someone else enjoys this wild ride.


End file.
